Sep 1, 2016 | Blog

Encourage a Culture of Internal Mobility to Build Talent Pipelines

Acquire the Right Talent

Have you ever struggled to find the right candidate for a position in your organization? You’d be hard pressed to find a talent acquisition professional who could answer that question with a resounding, “Nope!” In fact, research from HCI has shown that organizations with an internal talent sourcing strategy report less of a struggle to fill leadership positions than organizations that search for talent externally. Further, 59% of organizations surveyed said that internal mobility keeps them globally competitive.

Finding the right person for a job is a time-consuming and expensive process.  It takes organizations an average of 25 days to fill an open position, and as long as 58 days for organizations larger than 5000 employees (Source: Peoplefluent Whitepaper, Talent Pipeline Transformation That Gives You An Unfair Advantage). More and more employers are recognizing the benefits of talent pipelines when it comes to filling open or newly created positions. There just isn’t enough time to begin the sourcing process from scratch for every new role in an organization.

Innovative organizations are building talent networks and pipelines from pools of previous applicants, qualified candidates that were not selected, as well as potential candidates that have engaged with the organization at an event or through social channels. Talent acquisition professionals can streamline the sourcing and hiring process by beginning with candidates who are pre-qualified—referrals, prior applicants and especially existing employees.

Understanding the talent within your organization and identifying who can be called upon to fill key gaps is a key advantage. Further, creating a culture where employees feel safe exploring new roles within the organization can both increase engagement and encourage continuous learning and development. Most importantly, talent mobility goes beyond just being promoted to manager and getting a raise. Allowing for flexible career paths ensures that you can deploy the candidates with the strongest skills in the right roles at the right time.

According to recent HCI research, not all individual contributors want to be or can be leaders. Individual contributors, especially high performers, can be just as valuable to an organization by taking on more responsibilities or new duties rather than assuming leadership positions. Do non-managerial career paths exist in your organization? What do they look like?

A culture of internal mobility is driven in large part by a strong analytics program. Analyze the data that currently exists in your current talent management system to illuminate the strengths and skills of talent you already have. With this data, create pipelines of qualified talent to streamline the recruiting process and develop larger succession strategies, all while retaining the best employees by giving them the opportunity to advance through the ranks.

For more on the importance of internal mobility, join the webcast “Stop the Hop – How to Build a Culture of Internal Mobility to Promote Retention” taking place on Wednesday, September 14 at 2pm ET featuring Jack Hill, Director of Talent Acquisition Solutions at Peoplefluent.